beowulf

No I disagree. Deitys need to have evidence to even suggest that they might exist before I will even consider basing my life around them. The religious use very poor reasoning and often down right lies to support their beliefs. Just go to the Answers in Genesis to see the many lies and misdirection that is put out there by the religious. There is no non-physical anything. Spiritualism or super natural are just things that people made up. It's just silly to believe these things with out any evidence to even suggest they are real. Show me some evidence to suggest their real. Use proper critical thinking. Otherwise I will laugh off your beliefs. There are currently areas of life that we don't have concrete answers for. Some of us choose to believe that science will fill in the gaps in due course, others prefer to attribute certain things to a God (or Gods). I think you are stretching things to say there is nothing "non-physical". I believe there are things that are currently attributed to the supernatural by many people that one day we will have a complete understanding of. Kallends example of the placebo effect is an excellent example - it shows the power of belief. I don't believe we have scientific answers for that (yet). And deitys are the silliest thing ever thought of by man. What is there that is non-physical?? As for the placebo effect that is a example of the psychological effect on the body. It's not super natural.

No I disagree. Deitys need to have evidence to even suggest that they might exist before I will even consider basing my life around them. The religious use very poor reasoning and often down right lies to support their beliefs. Just go to the Answers in Genesis to see the many lies and misdirection that is put out there by the religious. There is no non-physical anything. Spiritualism or super natural are just things that people made up. It's just silly to believe these things with out any evidence to even suggest they are real. Show me some evidence to suggest their real. Use proper critical thinking. Otherwise I will laugh off your beliefs.

There is a difference between believing in something and working to validate your belief and believing in something and not looking to validate it in any way. Religion and deitys fall into the second one. They just believe with out any evidence and are not looking for any evidence. That is faith. Your apparent belief that deitys are simply a discovery waiting to happen is highly unlikely since no one is searching for any evidence because it would negate the need for faith. I am open to any evidence of any deity and to date there is none that can be tested or reproduced. Not asking for evidence before basing your whole life on something is in my opinion insane.

What is misguided about that?

There isn't any way to "know", but it makes much more logical sense then does the existence of deitys of which there is no evidence.

No evidence is not personal. If it's only believable by one person then it can't be verified or trusted. The whole point of evidence is so that you can test it and validate it with others to know it's real and valid. This is a pretty meaningless response. If you can't come up with more then that how do you know that what you believe in is real? Faith is the same as wishful thinking. I think deitys were made up by primitive man to explain what they didn't understand. The human mind can come up with all kinds of delusions to support this belief. That is why the scientific process was developed so that we can deal with the minds delusions. Just because you think it's real doesn't mean it is.

Faith is belief with out evidence. How do you know there is even a such thing as a "spiritual life"? How do you know the "answers" are real or even correct if there is no evidence. If there were evidence then you wouldn't need faith. What "natural spiritual desires"? I don't experience that "natural spiritual desires". How do you know it's real?

Using the big rubber ball as a landing gear is a pretty cool idea!

Ah yes the old semantics argument, rather then trying to understand what I meant. With any religion when you continually ask how do you know, eventually you arrive at faith. Christianity always claims to have answers when all they really have is faith, belief with out evidence. And there is no evidence to support the existence of any deity. Atheists use reason to discount the existence of any deity.

Meh, you should've seen me when I was an athiest... Any who, I hope your perfect thinking takes you very far in life...godspeed. I am not all that convinced that you were really an atheist. Atheism is about reasoning. Religions are about faith.

Please post a link to the article.

You don't know that...Maybe this nice little old lady is able to recognize her limitations when the time comes. Perhaps if she were in a full spin out and tried to "handle the situation" beyound her ability to control it in the proper manner, she'd jump the curb and kill you... All I can really do is pray that you recognize your limitations and come to the realization that you're not invincible and taste the sweet nectar of humility and the grace of God that abounds once cultivated...until then, your vain attempts to understand spirituality by reckoning your misconceptions with other's misconceptions will only continue to backwash an innacurate appraisal of Christianity. A fine example of religous "logic".

With out the tuffet or any apparent target.

The military has some chambers they use for hypoxia training in Oklahoma City? and in Houston. I know they do allow civilians to participate in their trainings. I don't know the specifics on the training but it shouldn't be that hard to google.

I see it like this. Deitys have the same amount of evidence of their existence as unicorns, boogie man, leprechauns, or any other fantasy creature. It's really hard for me to say there might possibly be a deity of any kind. But it is possible, sort of, just like it's possible that unicorns exist.

With the absence of any evidence of any deity the logical conclusion is that there are no gods.

http://www.airborne-sys.com/pages/view/raider-intruder Because of this thread I thought I would lookup the companys current products. Check out their video of someone landing one of their parachutes. The parachutist in the video never flares. He just holds in deep brakes all the way to the ground! I have never seen any experienced skydivers do that before. With a canopy that big ( over 300 sqft) I guess landing in deep breaks isn't a problem.

Any time you want to start freeflying let me know and we can do some coaching jumps. Except this weekend, I will be at Nationals.

Religion never really made any sense to me. Growing up I was indoctrinated in Christianity and when I was about 13 or 14 years old I really focused on Christianity and started asking questions. I found that the more questions you ask the fewer answers you get. When all the answers I got were you just you have to have faith I started rejecting the whole idea of religion or god. The more I studied religions the more I became convinced that gods and religion were a construct of humans. Faith and prayer are not any different then wishful thinking. The harsh reality that many people can't deal with is that we were not made we evolved on this planet the evidence supporting evolution is abundant and is available for study to anyone willing to do the work. There is no afterlife so make the most of what life we have right now instead of wishing for a fantasy afterlife.

Those religous people are in the minority. Just try to run for a major office as an atheist. I have no interest in trying to change anyones belief nor do I have any illusion of that working at all. I just point out their illogical conclusions and ask questions so that maybe someone reading it will realize how sensless religion is

I wish it did. But religion has shaped many of the laws here in the US. Belief in Santa Clause gets us a few days off every year and gets people to buy each other gifts for no other reason but tradition.

I see your point, but when people make ridiculus claims like this. I am going to point out how they have no evidence to support their insane claims. If they want to be taken seriously then they need to come up with some evidence. Otherwise their god and religion is no better then the Greek or Roman gods. It is true it's a pointless argument since the religous are way too emotionally invested in their beliefs to see any logic. But that is what arguing over the internet is all about. It's mildly entertaining.

Why do you think religion is exempt from needing any supporting evidence to back up their claims?

Just clarifing my original post and agreeing with you at the same time.

I replied mostly based on the demo canopy being ordered by the instructor. Now if that is a lie then I of course retract the statement regarding the instructor.